Confessions of an Industrialist
by Lambent Flame
Summary: When Smithers becomes victim to an eco-terrorist plot to kill Mr. Burns, Mr. Burns seeks revenge...but first, he must come to terms with Smithers' feelings for him.
1. Chapter 1

**Confessions of an Industrialist**

 **Chapter One**

Judge Snyder cleared his throat and said, "Mr. Burns, you are charged with two counts of murder and two of false imprisonment and attempted murder. How do you plead?"

"I plead to God every day that he will bring back the only person who loved me – Waylon Smithers, the man who those so-called victims viciously murdered while he was in the prime of his life. I'll tell you how this sordid affair began..."

* * *

Mr. Burns walked with Smithers to his limousine in the power plant parking lot. "Why don't you stay outside while I warm the car up?" said Smithers. "You can't be too careful since we got that bomb threat."

"You mean that little Lisa Simpson's premonition? You are too gullible! That girl is an environmentalist meddler. They want us to fear for our lives so that we will bend to their will."

Smithers smiled, said, "You're probably right, sir, but all the same, I insist," and closed the driver's side door behind himself and put the key in the ignition.

A thunderous sound pushed Mr. Burns to the ground. He looked back to see his limousine had erupted in flame. He stood up and his eyes widened in terror at Smithers' limp form, car parts embedded in him and his hair on fire. "Smithers, you're hurt! You need some help!" He walked toward the billowing smoke and gripped Smithers' hand, tugging at him to bring him out of the car. Inch by inch, he dragged his loving lackey onto the asphalt and away from the fire. He took off his own shoe and beat it against Smithers' head until the fire went out of his hair, then he held Smithers in his arms, looking scared into his eyes.

Blood sputtering from his mouth, he said, "I won't make it, Monty."

"No! You will live," said Mr. Burns.

"Before I go...you need to know...I'm in love with you."

"What are you saying? Don't talk that way. You need a physician!"

"I'm madly in love with you, like a man wants a woman, I want you, all of you. I dream about you day and night, I pray you'll hold me tight and say..."

"Waylon..."

"'I love you, too.'"

"Don't go..." Drops of rain splattered on his glasses and mixed with his blood on the pavement. "What can I do for you?"

"Just hold me until it's over." Mr. Burns squeezed with all his might as he shed a single tear. "Mmm. Tell me, Mr. Burns – will you miss me?"

"No, because you're staying right here," he said, rubbing the palm of his hand against Smithers'.

"You're here. That's all I need to know."

Mr. Burns held Smithers' hand and drew it to his chest. "You should live a hundred years. You can't leave me now."

"Just hold me, Monty. Let me die in your arms."

Mr. Burns ran his hand through Smithers' hair and cradled Smithers' jaw with the palm of his hand. "Of course, my dear Smithers. I'm here. Monty is here for you. I will hold you until the end." Smithers' face paled and his lips quivered, his eyes drifting aimlessly apart. Panicked, Mr. Burns gripped Smithers by his bow tie and said, "Before you go, you need to know...I love you, too." He kissed Smithers tenderly on the lips. Smithers emitted a sound halfway between a whimper and a moan as he returned the kiss and weakly squeezed his hand around Burns', their lips just meeting again before he went limp as he died.

"Oh, dear..." He tentatively checked Smithers' pulse. Upon failing to find one, he shuddered, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and spat a gob of saliva onto the asphalt. Sirens grew louder and higher pitched in the distance. "Smithers..." He looked around to ensure they were alone, then wept quietly into Smithers' chest. "Smithers..."

* * *

"Monty, have I told you lately how much I love you?" Smithers traced his finger over Mr. Burns' lips.

"Not lately enough," he said, kissing Smithers passionately, their tongues mingling. "I want you, Smithers. Now."

He eagerly dropped his trousers, and they engaged in sexual congress, Mr. Burns awash in the divinest satisfaction. Smithers stroked his cheek and gleefully said, "I never thought I would live to see this day."

Mr. Burns woke up screaming and sweating profusely as his heart raced. "You didn't..."

He fell asleep again soon, wishing to retreat from the stark reality of his confidant's passing. No, passing was far too gentle a word for it. Smithers hadn't _passed on_. More like he had been _violently ripped away_ from him.

 _His limousine exploded, and the sounds of scraps of metal tearing through flesh and bone echoed in his mind._

" _Smithers! What have they done to you?"_

" _Monty, I'm dying..."_

" _No! NO! Stop dying this instant! I command you! Not again..."_

 _He became soaked in Smithers' blood, the torrent persisting until the blood filled the parking lot and rose to his neck and he began to drown in it._

He awoke again. "Smithers! Smithers, come and hold me. I had a nightmare. I dreamt you died in my arms..."

"Let me soothe your jangled nerves." He crawled into bed with him and began to massage his shoulders. "Now, tell me all about it while I work these knots out of your exquisite trapezius muscles."

"There was a bomb in the car, and it discharged while you were in it. You confessed your love for me with your dying breaths."

"Ah, yes. I'd been meaning to tell you," he said, momentarily halting his massage. "I was afraid you would want me out of your life for good. I just couldn't take that chance. But God, did I want to."

"I don't want you out of my life! How could you think that for a moment?"

"Well...sometimes you treat me callously, and I doubt you care about me at all."

"Poppycock! I defy you to name one callous act."

"You cut me out of your will. You've had me sent to prison in your stead on multiple occasions. I can't tell you how many of my gifts you've tossed aside without so much as looking at them. I put a lot of thought and effort into those gifts, Monty. I did my level best to make you feel special, and you made me feel like a nothing. Where did I go wrong? I did nothing but love you..."

"Okay, so there were numerous callous acts on my behalf. But I have always wanted you at my side."

"Ahem."

"Well, besides the times I fired you. But it was never long before I rehired you. You didn't go wrong, Waylon – it's just my nature."

"No. Not your nature. Your heart wasn't always so hardened. Before life beat you down and built you up, you were a brilliant flame of love and generosity, and that flame never completely died. I've seen your beautiful, innocent soul spark far too often to think it's a fluke."

"More cloyingly than I would put it, but you're right. I felt that spark when I held you in my arms, when I thought you were dying and I felt like I was dying, too. You've always brought out the best in me, Waylon."

"May I – may I hug you, sir?" Mr. Burns nodded in assent, and Smithers enveloped him in an embrace.

Looking up and to the side to meet his eyes, he said, "I don't want you to leave me, Smithers."

Giving him a firm squeeze, he said, "Mr. Burns, you know I would never leave you."

He awoke, this time for real, and clutched Bobo in desperation. "Then why did you...?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Confessions of an Industrialist**

 **Chapter Two**

His fitful sleep had hardly been restorative, and so he reluctantly dragged himself through his routine. He went to the kitchen. "A cold cereal will suffice," he said, unused to preparing his own meals. Until he hired a replacement for Smithers, it would have to do. _A replacement. That's impossible. There is no one alive who could serve me as Smithers did._ He reached into the cupboard and retrieved a bran cereal. As he tilted the box to pour it into his bowl, his hand trembled. The cereal fell in, and he got the milk out from the fridge and poured it in. He looked into his reflection in the milk and for a second he was sure he saw Smithers' face. Smithers' smiling, sycophantic face, so eager to please him like a needy puppy fawning over its master. He never could resist Smithers' sad puppy dog look.

He pushed the bowl away. Food could wait. He had to get ready for work. Hurled into a dither every time he set to accomplish a task Smithers normally took care of for him, it took him an hour more than usual. The hardest part was driving his car. He sat for another twenty minutes at the wheel, attempting to compose himself every time he burst into a brief spate of tears.

Once he was inside the building, nearly two hours late, multiple people followed him, asking questions about budgets and worker relations and safety reports and efficiency ratings and stock options and uranium sourcing and senate committee hearings and audits and tartar sauce. He seethed more with each question until he finally boiled over. "Why in blazes are you hounding me with all this? Can't you dunderheads do anything on your own?"

"Normally we would go to Mr. Smithers about these matters, but he hasn't shown up yet."

Another man said, "He's probably hungover."

"You're fired!" he shouted. He turned to the other employees and said, "Summon the guards and instruct them to beat him to within an inch of his life."

"Dude, didn't you hear?" said another man to them. "Smithers is dead."

Mr. Burns' angry facade cracked at those words, and his face betrayed his anguish. When a tear began to slide down his nose, he turned swiftly about and walked with feigned purpose to his office.

One of the executives, a fellow in his thirties with black hair and wearing a gray suit continued to follow him. "I've taken the liberty of preparing a list of candidates to fill Mr. Smithers' position."

"That's a fool's errand," he said, curt.

"It is. Which is why I've split the job into two – personal assistant and executive assistant. I think you'll find I'm more than qualified for the executive assistant position."

"You vulture! He isn't cold in the ground yet and you're already scavenging his remains for personal gain?"

"Sir, I'm sorry, I -"

"I like your attitude. You're hired."

"Wha – okay. I mean, thank you, sir. It's my honor, and to honor Mr. Smithers, I swear I'll do my best to live up to his legendary work ethic."

"Yes, yes. What's your name, young man?" he said, opening his door to his office and letting them both in.

"Michael Smith." He extended his hand out for a handshake. Mr. Burns hesitated, then shook his hand. "I have the candidates for the position of personal assistant lined up. They are ready for you to interview them whenever you are ready for them."

"Very well. Send the first man in," he said, reclining in his chair. Smith left the room and returned with a man in his twenties sporting chestnut hair and spectacles. "And you are...?"

"Collins. Lyndon Collins. Pleased to meet you, sir," he said, shaking hands.

Mr. Burns smiled warmly. "Collins, is it?" He stared into Collins' eyes. "So, why do you want this job?"

"I have a lot of experience in the high-class service industry and am most comfortable when catering to the whims of the rich and powerful."

"I see. So what makes you think you're worthy of serving me?"

"I don't know that I'm worthy, sir, but I will do what I can to become worthy."

Mr. Burns chortled in an almost flirtatious manner. "I am accustomed to first-rate toadying, you know. The last man with your job..." His breath caught in his throat. "Oh, it's hopeless. No one could possibly measure up to him."

"I'll try, if you grant me the opportunity."

He looked Collins up and down. "Oh, really? Are you willing to prepare lavish feasts for me?"

"Absolutely."

"And will you throw it all away without hesitation if I tell you to?"

"Certainly. You're the one paying for it, after all, so why would I care what you do with it?"

"Will you perjure for me?"

"Yes."

"Will you go to prison for me?"

"If the price is right."

"Will you die for me?"

"Um..."

"I didn't think so. You are nothing but a poor facsimile."

"Look, I'm sorry for your loss. But you won't find anyone as devoted to you as Mr. Smithers was, anywhere, ever. Now, I have an impeccable resume as a servant, from my employment as waitstaff in some of the finest restaurants of New York to my service as a butler to some of the most prominent men in the country. Are you willing to give me a chance?"

"Oh, what the hell. Take the job. Now get me my tea."

"Right away, sir. How do you take it?"

He furrowed his brow in annoyance, as if he had expected the man to know already. He hadn't had to specify the way he liked his tea in twenty years. "Steeped for precisely three-and-a-half minutes and presented to me when it is hot yet drinkable."

"And what kind of tea would you like, sir? Green tea, English breakfast, chamomile, Earl Grey, spiced chai, peppermint..."

"Boil up some Snapple for all I care!" He waved his hand dismissively and watched as Collins backed out of his office, then shut the doors using a button on his desk and sighed deeply. He opened his desk drawer, pulled out a bottle of brandy, and filled a snifter to the rim. He drank it down in one go. A rare craving for a cigarette set in, and while he didn't carry them himself, he knew someone who did.

He ventured next door to Smithers' office, brandy and empty snifter in hand, and closed and locked the door behind him. The office was just as Smithers had left it – fastidiously maintained, yet warmly inviting. Stepping lightly, he made his way to Smithers' chair and gingerly ensconced himself in the leather upholstery. His own face behind glass and mahogany frame stared back at him from the desktop, the words, "Work harder!" written beside his signature. It had long been a mystery to him why Smithers, a competent, dedicated, enthusiastic employee, would request a signed photo to inspire his work ethic. In retrospect, it was so clear that it was merely a ploy to obtain his signature on a glossy 10 x 13 photograph. How many hours had Smithers spent staring into those glossy eyes, dreaming that they were gazing longingly into his own?

He pulled open a drawer and searched for some cigarettes. Smithers kept an emergency stash there despite his many attempts to quit. Invariably, some life stressor would pluck away at his last reserves and he would cave to his unsettled urge for nicotine. It was, at least, an urge he could satisfy.

He found an open cigarette box and pulled the lid away, but instead of cigarettes, he found folded bits of paper. He dumped them onto the desktop and unfolded one. It was a note. He read it silently:

 _My Beloved Mr. Burns: You are the light of my life. I am crazy about you. Crazy in love. How I wish I could tell you! Standing by your side day after day after day is an exquisite agony, yet I crave it more than life itself. Maybe one day I'll summon the courage to actually give you one of these letters. It pains me to think you might go to your grave not knowing how I feel about you._

He felt a lump in his throat. Refilling his snifter once again to the rim with brandy, he folded up the paper and opened another one:

 _Oh, Monty, I long for your perfectly sculpted physique. I dream about you and you alone. I dream about you even when I'm awake. I dream about your supple body straddled on mine, your hot breath on my neck, and your cool hands on my ass. I would die a happy man if you would just kiss me, once, of your own volition._

Mr. Burns smiled sorrowfully even as the lustful pining unnerved him. At least he had given him that parting gift of a pity kiss. Now, after Smithers' decades of longing had come to an abrupt standstill, it was his turn to pine for Smithers, albeit his was a pining born not of concupiscence but of conviviality.

He opened another drawer and found another carton of cigarettes, only to find this one stuffed with papers as well. "Dear God, Smithers, how much ink did you spill over your libidinous desire for me?" It occurred to him that it sounded like a euphemism for Smithers' sexual exploits of a solitary nature, and he chuckled half-heartedly.

Taking another long drink from his snifter, he absentmindedly rummaged through another drawer with his left hand, and he hit upon yet another carton of cigarettes, this time sitting on an ashtray beside a lighter. He set them on the desk and discovered this one actually had cigarettes inside. He lit one and took deep breaths, long drags, tapping the cigarette over the ashtray periodically. Smoking, along with booze, was one of the few vices the otherwise strait-laced man had partaken in, and he had only overindulged in those when their relationship was on the rocks.

 _Well, we're not on the rocks now, old friend. We're off the fucking cliff._

Someone rapped at the door. "Are you in there, sir?"

Startled, his hand flinched away from the ashtray, and an ember flaked off from the cigarette and fell onto one of the love letters, scorching his name: Burns. "Well, that's uncanny." He took a swig of brandy and bellowed, "Go away, Collins!"

"Sir, I got you one each of Earl Grey, English Breakfast..."

"I don't want any damn tea! Now leave me the hell alone!" He lit another cigarette while twisting the old one into the ashtray and fighting back tears and gulping brandy between drags of his cigarette. "Smithers...come here, Smithers. I need you," he said, weeping into his glass. "I need you..." With a clumsy movement of his arm, he knocked the glass over, and the alcohol seeped into Smithers' love letters before hitting the ground and shattering. He panicked as he gathered up the papers and pressed them dry on the lapels of his suit as he used his tie to squeegee the brandy off the desk top and drip it down onto his pants and onto the the floor where it soaked into the carpet.

"Sir, are you all right? I heard glass breaking."

"I promise I'll treat you better; I'll even tolerate the occasional kiss; just come back to me, damn you!"

"I'm calling security."

He sang drunkenly the old Henry Burr song, _My Buddy_ :

 _Life is a book that we study,_

 _Some of its leaves bring a sigh,_

 _There it was written, my buddy,_

 _That we must part, you and I._

 _Nights are long since you went away,_

 _I think about you all through the day,_

 _My buddy, my buddy, no buddy quite so true._

 _Miss your voice, the touch of your hand,_

 _Just long to know that you understand,_

 _My buddy, my buddy, your buddy misses you_

 _Buddies through all the gay days,_

 _Buddies when something went wrong;_

 _I wait alone through the gray days,_

 _Missing your smile and your song._

He dropped his head to the desk, weeping and murmuring Smithers' name in plaintive cries. Security personnel busted the door down and Collins led them to his side. "Mr. Burns...you need to take time off to grieve."

"Bushwa! All I need to regain my composure...is a little..." he shakily lit another cigarette and attempted to stand up, but he stumbled and would have fallen to the floor but for the guards catching him and setting him upright again. As they dragged him out of the office, the love notes - all save one - fell out of his hands and scattered on the floor. "Lock up his office! No one may perturb it! No one is to take his office! You hear me!" Again, he yelled, "You hear me!"

"I'll drive you home, sir," said Collins. "We'll set you to meet with a grief counselor as soon as you're sober."


	3. Chapter 3

**Confessions of an Industrialist**

 **Chapter Three**

"What brings you to therapy, Mr. Burns?" she said.

"My best employee...no. He was the closest thing I had to a...a friend. Is dea – is deceased. He was there for me almost every part of my day, from the time I awoke to the time I drifted off to sleep at night. And...I miss Waylon dearly. He...he loved me, you know. He was truly in love with me, and..." He shifted his eyes from side to side. " _Everything_ I say is strictly confidential?"

"Yes. I am obligated to keep everything you say to me a secret, provided you don't intend to harm yourself or others."

"I think I loved him, too."

"Do you think? Or do you know?"

"No – how could I? I never looked upon him with lust before..."

"Before what?"

"The night he died...I dreamt he flew in through my bedroom window."

"Then what happened?"

"I...fornicated with him as if he were a woman."

"How did that make you feel?"

"Wha-? How do you _think_ it made me feel?"

"I have a guess. But you aren't paying me to guess. I need to know how you really feel if I'm going to actually help you."

"Bewildered. Yet...exquisitely fulfilled. I felt better after that dream than I can recall feeling in the last twenty years. It was as if I'd just slept with Greta Garbo."

"Did you ever have sexual thoughts about Waylon before he died?"

"No. Well, there was the boathouse...but no."

"What happened at the boathouse?"

"He was drying my back with a towel – he wearing swimming trunks, and I wearing the speedo he suggested I wear. I was admiring his youthful physique, when he said, 'Like what you see?' And I said, 'Yes. You're a handsome man.' He said I was much more attractive than he was. I believed him to be disparaging himself, as I had no idea he found me arousing, so I told him not to sell himself short. I told him he was very attractive, and he said, 'Really?'

Then he started dabbing my chest with the towel and rubbing my skin in circles. A little longer than necessary. I think he was...testing the waters. Then he started drying my thighs, and through the cloth of his trunks it was obvious he'd become tumescent. He made up some excuse about the friction of the fabric, and like a fool I believed him, as I always did. The rest of our trip, he acted very nervous and would frequently begin to speak only to stammer and trail off...I know now he meant to tell me he loved me."

"Well, if that's the most sexual desire you've felt for a man, I don't think you're gay."

"Thank you for stating the obvious," he said, bitterly sarcastic. His voice growing somber, he said, "I don't think I'll ever be gay again without Waylon."

"Erotic dreams aren't always about wish fulfillment. They can also signal a desire to be close to someone. When you're having sex with someone, you're about as physically close to them as is possible. I think you just want to be close to him again. It must be very difficult to lose someone who has been at your side for twenty years. Many marriages don't last that long, and many couples aren't around each other as much as you two were."

"First you say I'm not attracted to him, then you say we may as well have been married. You are mixing your messages, head-shrink."

"You have to admit, there wasn't much difference between your relationship and a sexless marriage, so it's hardly surprising you're taking this as if he were your spouse. He wanted to get sex within the relationship while you sought to get it outside the relationship. It's a central conflict in many longstanding marriages."

Scowling, he said, "We. Were. Not. Married."

"Of course. That's beside the point, though."

"Which was...?"

"I think you need closure."

"What sort of closure?"

"You need to confront your feelings for him. And that will mean coming to terms with his feelings for you."

"I don't have 'feelings' for him."

"I didn't mean sexual feelings." She scribbled in her notepad. "I want you to write a letter to Waylon detailing exactly how you feel about him and how his presence in your life has affected you."

"I suppose after all the letters he wrote to me, it wouldn't kill me to write one to him."

"Hm? What letters?"

"Oh, just these sappy, salacious monographs he stuffed into empty cigarette cartons. I found them in his office."

"How did it make you feel, reading those?"

"Deeply disturbed."

"What disturbed you most?"

"They were too damned gay."

"Now, when you say, 'gay'...what do you mean by that?"

"Can't you understand the most rudimentary English? What diploma mill granted you a degree? Harvard?"

"Mr. Burns, you may not be aware, but that word has acquired another meaning sometime this last century. It can still mean happy, but most people using it these days are employing the other meaning."

"What other meaning?"

"It's a synonym for 'homosexual'. That's what people mean ninety-nine percent of the time they use it now."

His eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed. "I meant happy. He was all too happy to languish after me." His mouth tensed. "But also the other meaning. Don't mistake me - I'm flattered as hell, but to think those thoughts were running through his head all those years..."

"That's understandable. Perhaps part of why you're taking this so hard is you feel guilty."

"What have I to feel guilty about?"

"Maybe you feel guilty that he died so you can live."

"Oh, pish-tosh. That's his job."

"Okay, then. Try this: maybe you feel guilty for being incapable of returning his love."

"Now you are just speaking gibberish."

"Maybe. But you said he was the closest thing you had to a friend."

"Yes."

"People feel bad when their friend is hurting and they can't help them, whether that pain is physical or emotional."

"I don't feel guilty. I just want him back. They stole him from me, and I want him back."

"But Mr. Burns, even your billions of dollars can't buy him back."

"No. But perhaps they can buy justice."


	4. Chapter 4

**Confessions of an Industrialist**

 **Chapter Four**

* * *

 _Dear Smithers:_

He paused, then crumpled the paper, tossed it aside, and ripped a fresh sheet off his power plant memo pad.

 _My dear friend Waylon,_

 _I don't know what to write to you. Ordinarily, when I wanted to write a heartfelt letter, I made you do it for me. One would think that losing your father would have equipped me with the ability to handle your death with equanimity. Certainly, I had thought his death had hardened me to the point that you dying for my sake would perturb me no more than a rock skipping on an ocean wave._

 _But no. In truth, this is much worse. I want you back at my side, more than I can express. I need you, as I have always needed you. Not only for your skills, but for your companionship. No matter how much the plebeians loathed me, you would always greet me with a smile and make me feel like I was worth giving a damn about. Yours was a loyalty that sadly, I cannot buy._

 _I miss the way you did my bidding with alacrity. The way you called me 'sir.' The way you chuckled at my jokes. The way you made me chuckle at yours. The way you washed my hands. The way you washed my hair. The way you tucked me in at night. The way you worried about me when we were apart. The way you held me when I was frightened. The way you smiled for me when I was gladdened._

 _I truly –_

His pen hovered over the paper, trembling with the trepidation running down his spine and through his fingertips. He brought the tip down, touching the paper, leaving a small splotch of ink as he kept it stationary. He dragged the pen vertically up the page and lifted it again. He stared at his words and their conventional sadness, as lackluster a paean as he could conceive. "I truly loved you, Smithers." He wiped a tear from his eye, then looked over his shoulder to the profoundly empty air beside him. "I truly did love you."

 _I truly – I vow I will take vengeance on the fiends who felled you._

* * *

Mr. Burns walked into his office. He was no longer so shaken and rattled to the core, and his sorrow had melded with his deep well of animosity and contempt for his fellow man. He sat at his office throughout the whole day, attending to business as if it were any other, Mr. Smith updating him on the reports from various departments.

Near five o'clock, Mr. Smith left for the water cooler, and Mr. Burns decided to revisit Smithers' office to look at the other letters. Sober, he could handle the brutal emptiness without losing his composure. He turned the knob and walked inside, the room eerily sterile, clean, and calm. He approached the desk and felt a chill in his bones.

The floor was spotless, utterly spotless. There were no notes scattered about the floor as he'd left it. He opened the drawers one by one in a fervid panic. _What have they done?_ Mr. Smith noticed him in there and stood at the threshold. "Sir?"

In a slow, menacing growl, he said, "What did you do?"

"Uh, sir, I – nothing, sir, I –"

"You what?"

"I had maintenance clean this place."

"I gave explicit orders not to touch this room before you had me carted out of here like an escapee from a lunatic asylum! Did you think you could get away with such flagrant disobedience?"

"Sir, I was in a board meeting that day; Collins is the one who had you escorted out of here."

He ushered Mr. Smith into his office, then sat back in his chair. "Bring him to me." Once Collins stood before him, Burns fired him and sent them both through the trapdoor, dispensing with the typically creative ways he would find to deliver the news.

* * *

Mourners gathered on a grassy hill at the cemetery. Employees of the power plant, some of Smithers' friends from the gay district, Stacy Lovell, and Declan Desmond stood among the crowd, the last of whom had brought a camera.

Lisa said, "Poor Mr. Smithers. He died in the service of Mr. Burns just as his father did forty years ago."

"Wait – now I'm recording," said Desmond, pointing his camera at her. "Would you mind saying that again, Lisa?"

Lisa said in disgust, "Do you have to film now? A man just died."

"I know. Isn't it amazing luck? It's every documentary filmmaker's dream to have a tragedy befall his subjects in the middle of filming."

"You sicken me."

Desmond pointed his camera to Reverend Lovejoy as he began to drone the eulogy, when Mr. Burns stood sharply from the crowd and pushed him aside from the podium. "I must speak."

"Mr. Burns, _I_ was scheduled to deliver the eulogy."

"Shut up, God boy; you didn't approve of his lifestyle any more than I approve of being forced to pay people for sick days!" He cleared his throat. "Waylon Smithers, Jr. was a dear friend of mine, as was his father. He loved so much about life: from the ostentatious soirees we often attended to the simple pleasure of sharing a box of chocolates with the object of his affection. He was more than an employee. He was the only man who could subdue me. He was the only man who could gladden me. He was the only man who could... love me.

"I will never forget him, and I will never forgive the perpetrator or perpetrators of his murder. I will pay a million dollars to anyone who provides me with information about his murder that leads to the identification of the party or parties responsible. That is all." He walked away, his shoulder hunched in a dejected slump, and disappeared behind a tree.

"Mr. Burns," said an old woman with dusky gray hair, her voice shaky and sad.

"So we meet again." He put his hands into his pockets. "Another Smithers, another funeral... if only we would meet under more felicitous circumstances." He looked to his shoes. "Your son... cared for me deeply. I want you to know, I cared for him, too."

"If only you had acted like it."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I can't tell you how many times he called me, crying because you insulted him or fired him like he was nothing to you. You meant the world to him."

"But he _did_ mean something to me. At least I got the chance to tell him how much he meant to me before he died in my arms." He looked to the casket. "Right where he wanted to be."

"How much did he mean to you?"

"More than I ever realized."

He walked away from the funeral, waiting until everyone had departed to return to the grave, where he sat for hours. "You used to love looking at the sky. You knew the names of the constellations, and I knew the legends behind them. But then you'd tell me none of that mattered, because it was my face you saw in the stars." He looked up to the night sky, at first seeing dollar signs. His eyes adjusted and he saw Smithers' face twinkling back at him from the vast expanse of nothingness and light. "It was a good life, old friend. Much too short, but isn't it always?"

Looking up to the sky and leaning against the gravestone, he dozed off, and for a moment he thought he felt Smithers' hand on his shoulder. He awoke with a start, as if touched by a ghost, then reached into his front jacket pocket and unfolded a scrap of light pink pastel paper.

 _I think I can help you. I'll meet you at your house tomorrow after school._

* * *

 **AUTHOR NOTE:** Well, this is a rather belated installment. A year ago, after posting the first few chapters, i realized I didn't like the plot and ending I had written and decided to revise it a bit, which turned out to be a lot. Then I got distracted by other things. But now I have a much better story fleshed out, so I would expect to finish in the next couple of months. From the next chapter on, the mystery/revenge plot gets going in earnest.


	5. Chapter 5

**Confessions of an Industrialist**

 **Chapter Five**

"Does the name 'Lara Spiers' mean anything to you?" Chief Wiggum shifted in his office chair and looked into Burns' eye with his best approximation of an inquisitive look. The light was pale and stiff, much as Burns himself.

"No. I've never heard that name before."

"Well, Mr. Smithers had. It was written on the back of a receipt for a Malibu Stacy doll along with a phone number."

Lou said, "We traced the number, and it's for a prepaid cell phone we found in the branches of the old lemon tree."

"Ah, the old lemon tree! As a boy, I partook of many a lemon party by its proud trunk."

"Yes, well Mr. Smithers' phone records show he made a number of brief calls to this Lara Spiers in the last couple of months."

"So find her and bring her in for interrogation."

"Finding her will be easier said than done," said Eddie, dropping a phone book on the desk. "There isn't anyone by the name of Lara Spiers residing in Springfield, and computer searches aren't turning up anyone in surrounding areas. But we'll keep looking until we find her."

"See that you do."

* * *

"Well, if it isn't little Lisa Simpson, the be-pearled savior of the biosphere," said Burns as he opened the front door to his mansion and ushered Lisa inside. He filled a snifter of brandy and poured an apple cider, handing the latter to her as he took a seat behind the desk in his study and she sat in a small chair facing him. "What do you know about this?"

"I think EarL is behind the bombing."

"My topiarist? I'll have him eating his secateurs –"

"No, I mean EarL – Earth Liberation."

"You're the one who staged those protests against my animal experimentation program, aren't you? You and those radicals –"

"I'm not with them anymore. They're horrible, horrible people!"

"So the tables have turned, and now you're on my side?"

"I still think what you're doing to those poor animals is ghoulish, but Mr. Smithers' life was valuable, too, and the fiends who did this to him deserve to come to justice."

"And you think it was one of your cronies who killed him?"

"They were not my 'cronies'! For your information, I don't have any friends."

"You mean to tell me the shrill environmentalist is friendless? Will wonders never cease?"

"As if you have heaps of friends."

"No. I don't have any friends, I suppose. I did have one."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Burns. I didn't mean –"

"No, no, you're right. I'm friendless, unloved and alone. I'm a hopeless, solitary old coot just counting time, awaiting the inevitable."

"Mr. Smithers loved you."

"He did. Indeed, he did love me, as no one had loved me before. As no one else ever will." He sighed and listlessly fell back into a nearby chair as he opened up his wallet to reveal a photograph of them, Smithers' arm around his back and firmly clasped over his shoulder. Burns' own toothy grin stood out, taunting him with the memory of the secret joy he used to feel when Smithers showed him he was worthy of human affection. "What is even the point of vengeance? It won't bring him back."

"That's not the Mr. Burns I know. The Mr. Burns I know wouldn't rest until he'd taken revenge on those crooks."

"You're right. I can't let them get away with this. Tell me what you know."

"I overheard the leader of EarL saying, 'It's time to put Plan X into action.' Then I saw him pull a bomb out of the drawer."

"You scoundrel! You knew they were going to do this, didn't you?"

"I swear I didn't know until then! As soon as I could get away, I went to Mr. Smithers to warn him."

In a scarcely audible murmur, voice croaking a bit as his throat tightened, Burns said, "I told him not to worry..."

"What, Mr. Burns?"

He shook his head. "It's nothing. Now, tell me who this dastardly fellow is."

"Trent Steele."

"Steele, eh? Ah, yes, I seem to recall a headstrong hippie sort by that name. Insane, the way he squanders his wealth on 'Mother Nature.' More foolhardy even than wasting it on one's own mother. I'll just have to pay this Trent Steele a visit."

"On your way there, can you drop me off at the library? I have a book report coming up."

"Very well."

Burns drove down Industry Way in a forest green 1919 Cadillac Town Car, his goons Crusher and Lowblow riding in the seat behind him. As they approached a nondescript factory, the brakes screeched and the car careened until it settled askew to the sidewalk.

Squinting to read the street sign and the numbers on the building, Burns said, "185 Industry Way. This is the place." He deepened his scowl, gestured for his goons to follow him, and said, "Get ready to extrude some Steele."

They walked past the secretary at the front desk to the elevators. The young man at the desk clasped his hand over the receiver and said, "Excuse me, do you have an appointment?"

"Yes," said Burns flatly.

"Oh, okay then." He resumed his telephone call.

The elevator stopped at the seventh floor, and they walked briskly to Steele's office at the end of the hall. Burns took out a skeleton key and swiftly opened the door, his goons flooding in after him to cover him. "Steele. Tell me all you know of EarL, or I'll remove your ability to speak – permanently."

"Mr. Burns, you won't get away with your illegal bullying of the environment and those who stand up to protect it."

"You have the audacity to position _me_ as the villainous one?"

"There's nothing wrong with peacefully protesting against a despicable man such as you for poisoning the planet."

"You dare call the murder of my companion a peaceful protest?" He pulled his wallet out and slid a photograph out from beneath the vinyl window and held it in front of Steele's face. "You mean to tell me his life was worth less than a warren full of rabbits?"

Steele stood agape, eyes fixed on Smithers' warm, loving smile, arm draped around Burns' shoulders. "I didn't kill him, I swear! I'd never kill a fly, much less –"

"We know about Plan X. Quit the choir boy act and tell me what you know." Burns pulled a revolver on him and cocked the handle.

Lip trembling, cheek paling, he said, "Okay, I admit – we did have a bomb ready, but we never intended to kill anyone! The bomb wasn't meant for a person."

"So that's why you strapped it to my car? So that when Smithers turned the key, he would suffer in a nonviolent explosion?" He winced, scowling as intensely as he possibly could lest he lose a tear, then said in his most deadly sinister voice, "I'll see you in hell." He stared straight into Steele's eyes as he pulled the trigger. Propelled to the ground from the recoil, he reached for a hand up. "Crusher, be a dear and help me up so I can watch the blood gush from his loathsome heart." Crusher and Lowblow each took an arm and helped him up, only for him to see Steele remaining upright and terrified but uninjured. "Why in damnation aren't you bleeding to death?"

"You missed. And it's good that you did, because I'm prepared to tell you everything."

* * *

AUTHOR NOTE: It took longer to get to this than I had anticipated, as I came up with a few more changes to the plot.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

Steele steadied his trembling voice as he said, "Plan X was to blow up that billboard of you shaking hands with that obnoxious mascot of yours."

"You mean Smilin' Joe Fission? Who could harbor hatred for such a fresh-faced little atom?"

"But not all of our members thought this was a drastic enough action. In particular, there was one young man who struck me as less of a feel-good do-gooder and more of a miscreant radical. He said we had bigger fish to fry – metaphorically, of course, considering he's vegan."

"What is his name?"

"Jesse Grass. I – I think he's protesting at the opening of a new Krusty Burger today."

"Hm. I'll have to speak with this 'Jesse Grass.' You'd better hope your story checks out," said Burns, again pulling his gun on Steele and advancing until the end of the barrel was pressed against his temple. "Because if it doesn't..." He cocked the gun. "We tango." He withdrew the gun and patted Steele's shoulder in a motion so ostensibly affable that it was menacing. "Confiscate his security tapes."

Burns' goons pried his security cameras from the walls and inserted a USB drive into the computer, uploading a virus to the system to erase any transmitted data.

They left the building, and as the goons stowed the stolen cameras in the trunk, a burly man in blue overalls and a hard hat approached from the warehouse of a factory across the way. "Mr. Burns!" said the man, getting his attention. "We need to talk."

Burns raised an eyebrow in surprise, shoulders tense and guarded. "Who are you?"

"Roscoe. I run the steel mill."

"What business do you have with me, Roscoe?"

"I heard about what happened to Waylon."

"I neither need nor want any clumsy commiserations from a working stiff such as you."

"I heard you wanted information that may lead to the capture of his murderer."

"What do you know?"

"I would see him get out of a black 1984 Alfa Romeo at 11 p.m. in this alley most nights. He was with a woman, which aroused my suspicion. I called out to him to invite him to party down with us on the night shift, but he refused, said he was busy working on a special project for you."

11 p.m. was after Burns' bedtime. Rarely did he assign tasks to Smithers in the late night hours. "Did you hear what her name was?"

"No. But she dropped this," said Roscoe, digging through his back pocket for a red handkerchief. He chuckled. "I certainly got a lot more attention after I picked this up." He unfurled the square of cloth, revealing letters monogrammed in black: S. L. S.

Burns took it in his hand. "Who is this woman, and why would Smithers have been consorting with her?"

Roscoe shrugged his shoulders. "He's been busy planning for Stacy-Con 2017. I had assumed she had something to do with that. Until the explosion, that is."

"I see." Burns put the handkerchief in his pocket. "Can you give a description?"

"She had blond hair. She was well made-up, and she wore a skirt and business jacket."

"Thank you. Let me know immediately if you see her or find out anything more about her." He handed Roscoe a business card. "Gentlemen," he said, addressing his goons, "we may now proceed."

He drove onward to the location of the new Krusty Burger, where a small crowd had gathered around a young blond man donned in a cow suit and wielding a megaphone.

"Krusty Burger is Krusty Murder!" shouted Jesse Grass through the bullhorn. "Cows are creatures; don't dare eat here-s!"

Burns waded through the crowd, then snatched the megaphone from his hands. "Come with me."

"What? You can't just take my megaphone and tell me what to do. I know my constitutional rights!"

"Yes, you have the right to remain silent." He tried to heave the megaphone over his shoulder to whack Jesse on the head, but scarcely tapped his scalp. Crusher closed his hands over the megaphone and brought it down on Jesse's head, knocking him unconscious. Several people in the crowd clapped.

Jesse opened his eyes, to find he was tied up in a high chair in the kitchen of the not-yet-opened Krusty Burger, hands knotted behind his back. "Ah! Let me go! I mean – your burger goons don't scare me," he said, regaining his cool.

"My goons have no burger-related function. Tell me everything you know about Plan X."

"Whoa, dude. I may disagree with EarL about some things, but I'm not about to divulge their secrets to a suit like you."

"Tell me, or we stuff this burger into your mouth. It's real cow meat – well, the meat of some kind of animal, in any event."

Jesse cringed. "Okay, I'll talk! They wanted to blow up one of your billboards."

"But you wanted to blow up something else, didn't you?"

"That's right. I wanted to blow up the reactor core of your plant. Then people would see how dangerous nuclear power is! But they said my thinking was too 'radical.'"

"But they wouldn't let you, so you decided to blow up my car instead."

"What? No! I didn't do that, I swear!"

"Tell that to the man you killed," said Burns, scowling and showing him the wallet photo of Smithers.

"I didn't, I promise! I didn't even have a practical plan to blow up the plant. It was all bluster. Besides, the day he died, I was in jail from protesting at The Frying Dutchman in a shrimp costume."

Lowblow checked police records on his phone. "His story checks out. He was in juvenile hall for four days before and three days after Smithers' murder."

"I wasn't responsible," said Jesse, "but I think I know who is." He shifted in his seat. "Ruth Powers attended EarL meetings regularly, and two weeks before the bombing, I saw her talking to Herman – you know, that one-armed guy who sells military antiques and weaponry."

Burns looked over Lowblow's phone. "Apparently, you're innocent of killing Smithers. But you're still an environmentalist pest, and you must be dealt with. Crusher – show him how we handle nuisances like him." He stood back, and Crusher put a cap and T-shirt of Smilin' Joe Fission saying, "I -heart symbol- Nuclear Power" on him, then shoved him outside.

That evening, Burns pulled his limousine in front of Shotkickers, next to a black Mercedes SLS. He stepped out of the car, a black leather jacket pulled over his suit jacket, motioned for his goons to wait outside to cover him, then walked through the door of the inconspicuous building red building. He approached a stool where she sat, also clad in leather, nursing a glass of whiskey, and sat beside her. "So, you were a member of EarL."

"Hardly a member. I stopped by sometimes while waiting for Laura to finish her Saturday art class at the community center."

Skeptical, Burns said, "So your sole purpose in attending was to alleviate your boredom?"

"They also had good coffee. Organic fair-trade beans."

"So if you were such a casual member, why did you carry out Plan X?"

"I didn't – none of us did. Your idiotic billboard is still standing."

"But Waylon Smithers is not."

Ruth gulped, unnerved at the mention of his death, and her jaw slackened, sobered, as she shook her head slightly. "I didn't kill him. I wouldn't even kill you, scum of a man that you are."

"So you feel hatred for me."

"Who doesn't?"

Burns' mouth tensed, his eyebrows quivering a bit as his lower eyelids kissed his lashes. "You know who didn't."

"Look, just because I hate you doesn't mean I'm still not sorry for you." She took a swig of her whiskey. "What is it you're doing here?"

"You will tell me everything you know."

"Right, I'm just going to sit here and listen to you," she said, standing and slamming back the last of her whiskey.

Burns said, "Then perhaps you'll listen to them. Chief?" He spoke into his shirt cuff. "Chief! Now!"

Chief Wiggum emerged from the bathroom, and Eddie and Lou each came from the front and back doors. "Ruth Powers, I need you to answer a few questions down at the station."


End file.
